Village of Mundelein v. Village of Long Grove

• Decision Date: 10 October 1991
• Docket Number: No. 2-90-0822,2-90-0822
• Citation: 162 Ill.Dec. 636,219 Ill.App.3d 853,580 N.E.2d 599
• Parties: , 162 Ill.Dec. 636 The VILLAGE OF MUNDELEIN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. The VILLAGE OF LONG GROVE, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 599

580 N.E.2d 599

219 Ill.App.3d 853, 162 Ill.Dec. 636

The VILLAGE OF MUNDELEIN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. The VILLAGE OF LONG GROVE, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 2-90-0822.

Appellate Court of Illinois,

Second District.

Oct. 10, 1991.

John M. Mullen, Libertyville, for Village of Long grove.

Charles F. Marino, Chicago, for Village of Mundelein.

Brydges, Riseborough, Morris, Franke & Miller, Donald M. Lonchar, Jr., Thomas A. Morris, Jr., Thomas K. Gerling, C. Dirk McElravey (argued), Waukegan, Adeline J. Geo-Karis (argued), Adeline J. Geo-Karis & Associates, Zion, Berle L. Schwartz, Highland Park, Bruce A. Slivnick, Deerfield, for Village of Vernon Hills.

Justice BOWMAN delivered the opinion of the court:

Plaintiff, the Village of Mundelein (Mundelein), challenged an annexation by defendant, the Village of Long Grove (Long Grove), through a complaint in quo warranto. The territory annexed by Long Grove was substantially the same as territory annexed also by Mundelein. The circuit court of Lake County granted Mundelein's motion for summary judgment. Long Grove appeals, contending that summary judgment in favor of Mundelein was error because (1) the court failed to examine the validity of the Mundelein annexations, (2) Mundelein's annexation ordinances were void, and (3) Long Grove's annexation was valid. We affirm.

In March 1987 a petition for annexation of their property was filed with Mundelein by the trustee/owners and beneficiary/owner of a parcel of land, known as the Livaditis parcel, located in unincorporated Lake County, near the intersection of Routes 45 and 83. Subsequently, the Livaditis parcel was the subject of public hearings regarding zoning, special use, and an annexation agreement for the property. The parcel was also discussed at a public meeting of the Mundelein Village Board on November 21, 1987.

On December 31, 1987, and again on January 2, 1988, Long Grove published a notice in the Chicago Tribune that on January 12, 1988, it would forcibly annex approximately 56.7 acres of property situated at or near the intersection of Routes 45 and 83. The territory Long Grove proposed to annex included the Livaditis parcel.

Before Long Grove could act on its proposed annexation, owners of 11 of the parcels in the area to be annexed filed petitions for annexation with Mundelein. Three petitions were filed on January 8, 1988, and eight were filed on January 11, 1988.

On January 12, 1988, Mundelein gave notice to other pertinent taxing districts and officials that, at a meeting on January 23, 1988, the Mundelein Village Board would consider annexation of the parcels for which it had received annexation petitions. That day Mundelein also notified Long Grove in writing both that it was actively considering annexation of the Livaditis parcel and that it had received petitions for annexation of 11 other parcels. Mundelein requested Long Grove to defer any action to annex those properties.

The same evening, January 12, 1988, Long Grove adopted ordinance No. 88-0-1, which annexed 56.7 acres of property. The acreage annexed included the Livaditis parcel, the 11 parcels whose owners had requested to be annexed by Mundelein, and a segment of Commonwealth Edison (Edison) right-of-way. With the exception of one area the annexed territory was surrounded by the Villages of Long Grove, Mundelein, and Vernon Hills. The exception was 210 feet in length and occurred where the Edison right-of-way continued on beyond Long Grove's annexation territory. After passing through Mundelein, the unincorporated right-of-way ran south through Vernon Hills. Long Grove's plat of annexation included a part of the section of right-of-way that passes through Vernon Hills and designated it as Parcel 10 of the area to be annexed. (See Fig. 1.) A short distance south of parcel 10 the Edison property was incorporated into Vernon Hills. However, between the south edge of parcel 10 and the point where Edison's land became part of Vernon Hills there lay a strip of right-of-way 830 feet long and 210 feet wide. This parcel was not included by Long Grove in its annexation. The property consisted of 4.0048 acres and was surrounded to the south, west and east by Vernon Hills. See Fig. 1, "Omitted Parcel." [See Appendix.]

At a public meeting of the Village Board on January 23, 1988, Mundelein adopted ordinance No. 88-1-8, which annexed the 11 parcels the Village had been asked to annex. Subsequently, the owners of the Livaditis parcel filed an amended petition for annexation, and, on February 20, 1988, Mundelein annexed the Livaditis property.

Between March and May 1988 Mundelein, Vernon Hills, and Commonwealth Edison all filed applications for leave to file complaints in quo warranto challenging Long Grove's annexation. The applications were consolidated, all three applicants were granted the requested leave, and, by the end of November, the parties' quo warranto complaints were filed. Long Grove then also applied for leave to file a complaint in quo warranto, but its request was denied. Long Grove's subsequent petition for rehearing was also denied, as was its request for leave to file a counterclaim in quo warranto.

Long Grove filed answers to all three complaints. Its answer to Mundelein's complaint asserted the invalidity of Mundelein's annexation ordinances as an affirmative defense. Each plaintiff then filed a motion for summary judgment, and Long Grove responded with a summary judgment motion of its own, based solely on the alleged invalidity of Mundelein's ordinance.

Upon finding that Long Grove's annexation violated statutory requirements, the trial court granted plaintiffs' and denied defendant's respective motions for summary judgment. In a final judgment order the court declared Mundelein's annexation to be valid, held Long Grove's annexation ordinance No. 88-0-1 to be null and void, and declared that Commonwealth Edison's right-of-way remained in unincorporated Lake County. Long Grove then timely filed this appeal.

While a final judgment order was ultimately filed in this case, the trial court resolved the dispute after the parties filed and argued motions for summary judgment. A motion for summary judgment should be granted where the pleadings, depositions, admissions and affidavits on file demonstrate that no genuine issue as to any material fact remains to be resolved and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. (Logan v. Old Enterprise Farms, Ltd. (1990), 139 Ill.2d 229, 233-34, 151 Ill.Dec. 323, 564 N.E.2d 778; People ex rel. Village of Buffalo Grove v. Village of Long Grove (1990), 199 Ill.App.3d 395, 404, 145 Ill.Dec. 873, 557 N.E.2d 643.) Long Grove contends that neither requirement for summary judgment was satisfied.

Long Grove initially attacks the trial court's refusal to allow a challenge to the validity of Mundelein's annexation ordinance. The court did not permit Long Grove to raise the issue in either a separate quo warranto complaint or as a counterclaim in Mundelein's quo warranto action. While Long Grove asserted the invalidity of Mundelein's ordinance in the form of affirmative defenses to Mundelein's complaint, and again in its motion for summary judgment, the trial court refused to address the question. The court rebuffed Long Grove's efforts for two reasons. First, in its order granting Mundelein's application for leave to file a quo warranto complaint, the court found that Mundelein's annexation proceeding enjoyed priority over that of Long Grove. Second, in its memorandum opinion granting summary judgment for plaintiffs, the court noted that, in the quo warranto proceeding against it, Long Grove had to justify its own annexation before it could challenge Mundelein's annexation proceedings. However, the court had found Long Grove's annexation to be void because it violated the statutes controlling forcible annexations. Accordingly, the court determined that the validity of Mundelein's annexation was not at issue. Long Grove asserts that the court erred both in finding that Mundelein's proceedings had priority over its own and in holding Long Grove's annexation to be null and void.

As we read it, Long Grove's initial argument is that Mundelein's annexation proceedings are not entitled to priority because the annexation petitions presented to Mundelein suffered from various defects. Long Grove complains that priority could not attach if the enabling statutes were not followed. This argument is without merit. Priority, as the term is applied to competing annexations, is not dependent on the correctness or validity of annexation petitions. Rather, priority refers to the well-established concept that multiple overlapping annexation proceedings must generally be considered and completed in the order in which they were initiated. (City of Countryside v. Village of La Grange (1962), 24 Ill.2d 163, 166, 180 N.E.2d 488; In re Petition of Long Grove (1987), 156 Ill.App.3d 1056, 1059, 109 Ill.Dec. 202, 509 N.E.2d 1041.) Long Grove adopted its ordinance pursuant to section 7-1-13 of the Illinois Municipal Code (Ill.Rev.Stat.1987, ch. 24, par. 7-1-13), which allows a municipality forcibly to annex property by the passage of an ordinance. Mundelein's annexation proceeded pursuant to section 7-1-8 of the Illinois Municipal Code (Ill.Rev.Stat.1987, ch. 24, par. 7-1-8), which provides for annexation at the request of landowners and electors residing in the territory to be annexed.

Section 7-1-8 voluntary annexation proceedings are initiated by the filing of petitions by the landowners. (People ex rel. Village of Worth v. Ihde (1961), 23 Ill.2d 63, 67-68, 177 N.E.2d 313; People ex rel. Village of Buffalo Grove v. Village of Long Grove (1988), 173 Ill.App.3d 946, 951, 122 Ill.Dec. 411, 526 N.E.2d 670.) Section 7-1-13 forcible annexations are initiated by passage of an annexation ordinance. (People ex rel. City of Leland Grove v. City of Springfield (1988), 166 Ill.App.3d 943, 946-49, 117...